As You Were
by Mirax Corran
Summary: Everyone has a coping mechanism for the overwhelming grief that seems to be inseparable from Torchwood. Angsty, no real romances, just a few hints here and there. T for language and "adult themes."


**Title:** As You Were

**Fandom:** Torchwood

**Characters: **Jack, Gwen, Ianto

**Genre:** Angst with a bit of romance

**Timeframe:** shortly post-Exit Wounds

**Word Count:** 900. Exactly.

**Author's Note:** My thanks to Carr for her help with this, in its various shapes – renewed interest in the fandom, inspiration, and so on …

_Disclaimer: I do not own the Torchwood series, nor are its characters and plots my creative property._

Whiskey in one hand, the other against his neck, he considers killing himself a couple of times. Was something of a hobby of his, back in the day, but he hasn't gone that route in a good while. Sipping the drink, he considers that it was probably some sort of punishment-cum-empathy, as he usually indulged – for lack of a better word – when there was a death in the family.

Maybe he'd feel better after a few healthy jumps from the top of the tower. He downs the rest of the drink and stands, wondering vaguely where Gwen and Ianto are.

Ianto is working, he realizes after a moment. Ianto was always working; the worse things were, the more Ianto worked.

Well, everyone deals in their own way, he supposes. Ianto works, Gwen mopes, Tosh worked – usually with a drink and some chips – but Tosh worked, and Owen was a drinker like him, though sometimes (but only sometimes, and here he remembers the Weevil cage) without the suicide.

Through the glass of their bleak building, he hears the soft clack of a computer keyboard as Ianto works on whatever it is Ianto works on at times like this – Jack's never had the heart to bother him and doesn't intend to start now. Gwen is nowhere to be found, which bothers him vaguely, but he chooses not to think too much of it. She always shows up eventually, when her period of despondency ends.

Brushing a hand against Ianto's shoulder, he heads for a roof – any roof, really – to remind himself a bit of his immortality. He hasn't properly killed himself in a while, not for any reason other than necessity.

Lying on the ground later, he wonders how he put Owen through this at all.

--

The bed is cold.

Cold and – she realizes later – the sheets probably haven't been washed in months, not since their owner had stopped—

Here she cuts herself off. Stopped sleeping? Stopped fucking? Stopped feeling? Stopped living?

He did all of them, to be sure.

She admits, finally, how painfully much she missed her sometimes tactile, frequently possessive, often insufferable colleague – friend? – lover? As she pulls a pillow against her chest, she's inundated with memories of their poorly defined relationship. Quietly, into the pillow, she laughs a little bit. Poorly defined certainly doesn't cover it, not even close. It was so poorly defined as to lack all definition, really.

They were simultaneously casual friends, fuckbuddies, colleagues and confidantes. They shagged each other until they couldn't think, poured their souls out a bit, and then she went home to her boyfriend.

It still makes her head hurt, just a little bit. (She is sorry, truly, for Tosh's death. But his is at the forefront of her mind, too overwhelming and boggling for her to take on any more grief.)

He was one of the most confusing, most enigmatic, most amazing men she ever met. Strangely possessive for a ladies' man, painfully harsh and yet touchingly protective; she had no time to come close to understanding him. And then he died – for real, this time – to save them all.

The cliché of it makes her smile just a little bit. Owen Harper dying to save Cardiff – Owen Harper dying to save anyone. It's slightly surreal to her, lying fully clothed in his long-unused bed, shivering. But then, she is almost sure that once – and this is as sure as she can be of anything about him – that he was willing to die for her.

--

The computer keys click softly, unnoticeable except in the Hub's eerie silence. Even Myfanwy is still. Jack is in his office, Gwen is somewhere, Ianto is working. The new status quo, it seems.

And unlike the other times the Hub has been silent and grief-filled, there isn't another set of clicks breaking the silence. Toshiko's chair is freakishly empty, the loss of the sounds of her snacking adding to the deafening silence. Ianto feels Jack's hand ghost across his shoulder but says nothing. There are times for words; this is not one of them.

Instead, he stares blankly at his computer screen. Death certificates must be filed – Tosh always did those, computer genius that she was; possessions must be collected and catalogued. Did loved ones need to be informed?

Were there loved ones to inform at all?

He remembers Tosh mentioning her mother a few times, but also that she was forbidden from real contact with her. The extent of what he knew about Owen's loved ones was what the other man shared while opening the Rift to "bring Diane back."

Not many people.

Torchwood does that, Ianto knows. Steals your life away until Torchwood itself is all you have left to live for. It had taken all of theirs, really. Jack's first, then others had followed, Ianto doesn't really think that Gwen's part-time marriage to Rhys counts, if only because he's still not convinced that her heart is in it.

Tosh's death certificate is simple – a gunshot wound to the abdomen, a date, and a time. Owen's is more difficult, as he died too many deaths by the end. Before Ianto can stop himself, he starts tallying them, disgusting himself with his own detachment.

He takes Jack's advice about yet another colleague and types.

Death by Torchwood.


End file.
